Facebook Games VS Linux

Since I did a really good job of screwing up my Windows XP installation (that is, I killed it by accident) I’ve been spending a lot of time using Linux (Gentoo) and KDE 4.3. I love it, but there are a few problems that one can run into now and again.

Facebook games, for instance, are a crap shoot. Some will work fine and others are not so fine. Since I can’t do anything about this directly I thought I would do the next best thing: bitch about it on a blog and hope someone that can fix it will.

So here is my list of Facebook games that I use with Linux.

I’ll mention that I use Firefox 3.5.2 and Flash 10.0.32.18, which is the latest I can get with Gentoo.

• Restaurant City (Playfish) – I’ve never been able to get into this one. I always get a message saying that it’s unable to make a connection to Restaurant City. I get this often on Windows, too, but it’s a constant on Linux.
• Crazy Planets (Playfish) – This one always gets stuck at 10% on the loading screen.
• YoVille (Zynga) – It looks like Zynga fixed the problem where you couldn’t click on the game thing. Or I just managed to skip it. In any case, it looks like YoVille is now working. Wait, I take that back. The inventory screen only shows the first item in your inventory. Still, not too bad.
• Farm Town (Slashkey) – Farm Town has some display issues but that’s common with Windows, too. The only problem that I can see with Farm Town is that there are no scroll bars in the store so you can only see the stuff that’s on top. This is a minor issue until you really want something that you can’t get to.
• Farmville (Zynga) – Seems to work just fine. I haven’t seen any problem yet.
• Pet Society (Playfish) – Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Again, this is also something that happens in Windows. When PS is working in Linux it works fine.
• BeJeweled Blitz (PopCap) – As addictive as crack, Bejeweled Blitz works great with Linux. Which is unfortunate because it’s such a time sink.
• Farkle (Viral Games) – Farkle works fine. I think it cheats, but it works.
• My City (????) – This one works in Classic View. Silverlight might work with Moonlight, but I can’t be bothered to install it. The only problem I see with this one is that there doesn’t seem to be a point to it.
• Pathwords (Zynga) – Works fine. I just suck.
• Geo Challenge (Playfish) – Hmmm. Maybe Playfish has a problem with their network code that doesn’t work too well with Linux. Same problem as Restaurant City in that it can’t establish a connection.
• Word Challenge (Playfish) – Unable to establish a connection. I’m seeing a pattern here.
• Bowling Buddies (Playfish) – Same.
• Word Whomp Derby (Pogo) – Works great. No problems.
• Minigolf Party (Playfish) – Yep, won’t establish a connection. I see a common thread here.
• Uno (Gamehouse) – First, I think it’s great that this card game is on Facebook. Also, I think GH did a great job with it. It also works great.
• Kidnap! (Travel Channel) – Works fine.
• Pirates, Mob Wars, Mafia, etc – All the ones that you just click on stuff work fine, but that shouldn’t be too surprising.

It would be nice if the rest of the world would start realizing that more and more people are using an operating system other Windows. While I’m not a huge fan of Apple, I do like diversity so Playfish, Adobe, and others should do a better job of checking their stuff against other OS’s.

Testing Bilbo

I usually use Microsoft’s Live Writer to write this, but I’ve been using KDE4.3 a lot lately so I thought I’d give Bilbo a try.

It seems pretty good so far.

A New Way Of Thinking

Something that’s always bugged me about television series is how they can start to get tedious.

This mostly revolves around dramas of one kind or another.  Sitcoms are usually self-contained episodes that don’t really rely on a back story.  Although, sometimes they do.

When I was a kid watching cartoons, for instance, it was always annoying that when watching “Battle of the Planets” the villain was going to get away.  Not the minor bad guy, the dude piloting the weird ship that looked like one kind of animal but was called something else, but the top bad guy.  G-Force would never, ever, knock down the Spectra organization.

Shows that have a back story where the main character or characters are looking for something, running from something, or have some kind of goal as its background story are going to become tedious.

Following a character for year after year just to see them fail, in the long run, is a bummer.

If I were given a chance to create a television show I would do it differently.  It would be designed to be contained in one, maybe two, seasons.  All the scripts would be written ahead of time to create a uniform and believable story.  Nothing is worse than when writers start pulling ideas out of the air to make things that happened in the past fit with what they want to do in the future.  Anyone remember the eighth season’s cliffhanger of “Dallas?”

The season would have a definite beginning, of course, but also have a definite ending that has a definite resolution.

If there’s enough enough clamoring for another season, then it can be done.  A new story line can be written up, again with the idea of going through an entire season.  Kind of like a long mini-series.

This would also let the actors involved decide if they want to keep going for another season.  Everyone knows how fickle actors get when it comes to being stereotyped.  If they have another project they want to do they don’t have to worry about renegotiating their contracts in mid-season.

So, if you’re in Hollywood and reading this go ahead and drop me a note.

 

 

After These Messages

I’m not a commercial person.  I don’t mean that I don’t like my material items, I most certainly do.  But I really hate commercials.

I don’t listen to radio because I hate listening to the commercials.  They just seem to go on and on and when the music finally hits, it’s over before you know it.  By the time I stopped listening to Howard Stern in New York I would swear that there were twenty minutes of commercials and ten minutes of show.

Some people might feel bad for me because I don’t have cable or satellite.  Don’t.  I’m perfectly happy watching my shows on Hulu.  At least there I only have to sit through one 30 second commercial; on regular TV it’s several minutes of dumb commercials.

I don’t mind so much if the commercials are kind of clever or funny.  But when they’re really stupid it totally makes me not want to buy whatever product they’re hawking.

Have you ever seen those cheapo commercials for “time saving” devices, or helpers for household chores?  They show some dimwit trying to do something really easy but they’re having a really hard time.  Like opening a cereal box, or putting a shirt in a drawer.  Then they get all frustrated and throw whatever it is they’re working with down on the ground.  I hate those.  They aren’t even believable.

Right now, though, Geico has my brain melting.  They’re the only company that has three concurrently running commercial ads that are mind numbingly  dull and stupid.  And also very overplayed.

Isn’t the gecko getting a little old by now?  Sure, it was sort of clever when it started out, but that was a long time ago.  How much more can you do with a CGI lizard?

The less said about the cavemen the better.  A commercial idea so horrendous, they got their own TV show.  Which failed miserably.  Did they give up on the whole caveman idea?  No, not at all.  They keep coming back.  If the original cavemen were that industrious we’d still be dragging our knuckles on the ground.

Finally, there’s the commercials with the stack of money with a pair of eyeballs that plays Rockwell’s, “Somebody’s Watching Me.”  I don’t even know what it’s supposed to mean, but the commercials freak me out.  If I were in the market for insurance, Geico would not be getting my money.

Hulu-Hoop

I like Hulu.com because it lets me watch TV shows that I never get to watch because I have a big problem spending a lot of money for not watching a lot of TV. 

In terms of TV-Land I’m pretty much out in the desert.  I really don’t know what shows are out or what’s coming up or when anything is on.  Unless it’s a show that’s been on since forever in the time slot then I’m lost. 

This is a lot different than when I was a kid.  Back then I could tell you every show that was on, what channel it was on, what time it was on, and what new shows the Fall will bring.  All this without the Internet.  Of course for most of that time there were only three major networks – ABC, NBC, and CBS.  Then Fox jumped in.  Then everyone else and their brother set up shop.

So, anyway, I’ve lost touch.  There’s been a bunch of shows that have come and gone that I’ve never heard of. 

But, thanks to Hulu, I get to catch up on quite a few of them.  For instance, I could watch what is possibly the best science-fiction show every made: Firefly.  I’d known about it, knew it was chucked off the air, but never saw it until it showed up on Hulu.  Other gems I got hooked on were: Dead Like Me, Journeyman, New Amsterdam, John Doe, Surface and others. 

If you look through that list you may notice that none of them are on the air anymore.  Killed, cancelled. 

And that’s why I hate Hulu.  I could have gone my entire life without watching some of these shows, and never wanting to see them, or even knowing about them.  It really sucks to get interested in a show and find out it was knocked off the air years ago and will never come back.

It won’t stop me from continuing, though.  I’m just a glutton for punishment.

300 Begins Today. Again.

Maybe 300 words a day is a bit ambitious.  It shouldn’t be.  I should be able to knock that out in a very short time.  Lately, though, I just haven’t felt up to it.  I feel a few moments of ambition and then it does out.

Last night the wife and I went to see “Julia & Julie.”  A not-quite-a-writer decides to go through Julia Child’s cookbook and prepare all the recipes in a year.  Along the way the blogs about it, becomes famous, and a billion people try their best to throw money at her.

This depresses me for a variety of reasons.  For instance, I’ve been writing blogs for a long time and nobody has tried to give me money for it.  I can’t really blame anyone for that given what my blogs are about.  Nobody really wants a book full of nonsense.  Well, maybe.  Maybe somebody would be interested in my thoughts on Pet Society and orange fluffy kittens.

Ultimately, though, I know where the problem lies: with me.  Let this be a lesson to anyone out there who is thinking of writing but “doesn’t have the time” or “doesn’t have a good idea” or has more excuses for not writing than for writing.  Don’t fall into that trap, don’t waste your life.  Maybe you won’t succeed, but if you don’t at least give it a try you’ll feel like you’ve failed because you never tried. 

Maybe it isn’t too late for me, but until I can find my focus and get myself to be serious about what I want to do I will be the one reading the books wishing I had written one, watching the movies wishing I had written one, and whatever else goes with that. 

And that’s my three hundred words for today.